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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GMMichael" data-source="post: 6252800" data-attributes="member: 6685730">Great!  I'm taking it to press.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />The protection roll can easily be eliminated by taking half.  But I see your point: why a roll at all?  Why aren't protection ratings static?  And the answer, off the top of my head, goes back to my definition of damage (a distance from death measurement).  To say that plate armor always reduces damage by, for example, 5, is to say that plate armor is uniformly better at preventing physical death than padded armor (maybe 2 protection). This points straight at one thing: damage is weapon injury.  Which it's not (always).Now, if the defender rolls protection instead, he can easily roll a 1, meaning that his armor universally failed to prevent any more than 1 damage to him.  An unarmed attack could have rolled 4 damage, or a longsword could have rolled 8+1.  So each attack has a chance to deal significant damage, regardless of how good the protection is.Earlier in development, I had a concern that plate mail should always be more effective against a dagger than padded armor is.  While unfounded, I decided to add static-bonuses to the protection ratings, so plate mail might have been d8+4 while padded armor was d4+1.  Luckily, I realized that the ability to take half accomplished the same effect, while giving an important trade-off that applies to all take half decisions: taking half saves you time and guarantees your result, but you could be rolling better.This speaks to me, and I've already applied the shield concept in Modos RPG.  However, I'm afraid it's a slippery slope to weapon speed being added to initiative, and armor effectiveness against different weapon types, and then becoming a full-fledged combat simulation, instead of an RPG.  I think the same thing (including my appreciation of it) applies to the formations mechanics that you mentioned.</blockquote>

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